May 4 "We Might Need To Pivot..."

When starting a new project, the important question that’s rarely asked:

“What will we do if this doesn’t appear to be working?”

It’s crazy, because we know statistically that 80-90% of new businesses don’t succeed.

99.99% of plane trips are perfectly safe, but we still plan for an evacuation at the start of each flight.

One of the problems with traditional management theory is that it celebrates success, and blindly encourages perseverance in tough times.

That’s unfortunate, because it doesn’t describe how to persevere.

“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result”

In the vast majority of circumstances, continuing to do the same things won’t magically fix the problem, it will lose you more money and frustrate your team.

What we should talk about is persevering with the essence of the business, whilst letting go of some particular details.

It’s called “Pivoting”

Keeping one foot planted on the ground, then moving the other around to find a better position.

Marc Andreessen famously said:

“The pivot: it used to be called “The fuck-up.”

He also said:

“An awful lot of successful technology companies ended up being in a slightly different market than they started out in. Microsoft started with programming tools, but came out with an operating system. Oracle started doing contracts for the CIA. AOL started out as an online video gaming network.”

Pivoting is tough to swallow, because it starts by accepting the idea that:

“We won’t survive where we are, but we might thrive somewhere slightly different”

“We have the right product, but we’re selling it to the wrong customer”

We need to think laterally about who has a valuable problem that we can solve, who will love what we can offer them. This might be someone in another industry.

“We have the right customer and product, but we’re pitching it in the wrong way”

We know we can help people, but we need to change how we’re perceived. This might be through a rebrand, redesign or a new campaign.

“We have the right underlying social intent, but the wrong program for creating impact”

We’re still driven to address this social problem, but we can find new ways of running our business, such as partnering with other groups, or trialling new interventions.

“We have the right underlying social intent, but we’re talking to the wrong donors”

We aren’t talking with people who can financially support our cause. We need to find donors who are in a position to make a serious contribution, and find the things that motivate them.

“We have something valuable, but customers are put off by our pricing”

Pricing can be prohibitively high or suspiciously low, depending on context and your competition. Sometimes you’ll benefit from offering a lower price, other times a higher price signals higher quality.

You won't be alone:

Netflix pivoted when they moved from DVDs to streaming.

STREAT pivoted when they switched from coffee carts to cafes and a roaster.

Instagram pivoted when they cut out all of their app’s features except for photo sharing.